It Goes Where I Go, Part II: The Soundtrack of a Lived Life

Like most mornings, I woke up early today but didn’t actually get out of bed. I just laid there, fucking around on the internet — checking socials, checking the weather, reading headlines, getting lost in meaningless thoughts. Not focusing on the big ideas, just noise. Somewhere along the line, I found myself scrolling through Ticketmaster, looking at upcoming shows. Iron Maiden presale starts Tuesday for next September. I intend to get good tickets for the San Antonio show.

I’m all about lived experience these days, but you know, there’s always a financial limit. I’m not fucking rich. I do okay, I’m not complaining, but I still have to live within my means.

It’s funny, I didn’t go to many concerts growing up. There weren’t many opportunities, and even when there were, a couple hundred miles to Fargo, Minneapolis, or Winnipeg might as well have been the moon to a poor kid scrounging for gas money. So I didn’t grow up with live shows as part of my world.

My dad loved music, though. That man would sing loud and proud when I was a kid — not good, mind you, but loud — and when he sang, he seemed genuinely happy. He had one of those massive wooden record player cabinets that took up half the living room. That’s how much music mattered back then; it was furniture. But somewhere along the line, he stopped. Or maybe he just stopped doing it around me. When I visit now, his house is silent. No music, no rhythm. Just TV noise.

Maybe it reminds him of his drinking days — the chaos, the parties, the parts of himself he doesn’t want to revisit. I don’t know. He’s been sober for years, and maybe silence became his way of staying that way. But I think that’s sad. Music used to be the thing that brought him joy, that made him come alive. And seeing that part of him vanish hits me harder than I admit.

Maybe that’s why I’ve gone the other direction.

On my graduation weekend, I did manage one big show: KISS in Fargo. What a weekend. Graduated Friday, went to KISS Saturday, got rear-ended and totaled my old man’s car on the way, rested Sunday, and left for boot camp Monday. Seventeen years old and barely out of the gate.

My next concert wasn’t until 1994 — Tool in Hawaii with shipmates. Then Jewel in Denver (thanks to an ex), Lilith Fair up in Winter Park, Ani DiFranco in Santa Fe, Cyndi Lauper in 2013 at the Ogden in Denver. That one wrecked me in the best way. Cyndi’s voice has only grown stronger with age, raw and beautiful. When she did a tribute to Matthew Shepard’s mother, who was sitting in the balcony, I cried like a kid. And I don’t mean a sniffle, I mean full-on tears, because it was that fucking powerful.

I hadn’t been to a concert since, not until last Thursday. Judas Priest and Alice Cooper at Isleta. Holy fucking hell, what a show. Priest came on after some band I’d never heard of. At first, Rob Halford sounded a little flat, and I thought maybe his voice had gone. Nope. By the second song, he was in full form — a goddamn force of nature. He hit the classics: Breaking the Law, Hell Bent for Leather, and this new one, Giants in the Sky, a tribute to fallen rockers. When Ozzy’s laughing face appeared on the screen, I almost teared up again.

And Painkiller? Jesus. The man’s in his seventies and still shredding souls with that scream. They didn’t play Monsters of Rock, but that’s fine. Giants in the Sky carried that same pulse — reverence, defiance, gratitude. I saw Judas Priest live, and it was everything I hoped it would be. They were the soundtrack of my youth. Rob Halford owns a piece of my heart, and he doesn’t even know it.

Then Alice Cooper came on. That man is theater incarnate. I’ve never been wild about School’s Out or I’m 18, but live? They hit different. Only Women Bleed, Feed My Frankenstein, Cold Ethyl — his voice is still sharp as ever. He even wove in a cover of Another Brick in the Wall. The whole set was showmanship at its finest.

And you know what? I went big. Decent seats, VIP club access, the whole nine. Because death taught me something: it’s okay to be selfish about the things that make you feel alive.

Music has always lived in my soul. I always have it on — in the house, in the truck, and especially when I ride. My AirPods go in, volume up, and I sing at the top of my lungs. I love to sing. Johnny Cash once said that singing heals a troubled soul. He wasn’t wrong.

Next Tuesday, Iron Maiden tickets go on sale, and I’m getting great seats for the San Antonio show. It’s next September, but I’ll be there. I’ll ride down — full circle, since that’s where I found Lilith. There’s a kind of poetry in that. Iron Maiden was always part of my 80s soundtrack, part of my DNA. Stickman and I used to belt out Seventh Son in the Navy, mixed in with stuff that probably confused the hell out of everyone else — Elton John’s Rocket Man, Cher’s Heart of Stone, Shakespeare’s Sister’s Stay, The Odds’ Wendy. I miss that man.

I’m not ready to write about him yet. His place in this story is at the intersection of life and music — how both remind us that we’re still here.

So yeah, when I’m tired or frustrated, I still throw a leg over the bike and let the wind do its work. I still sing loud enough for passing cars to stare, and I don’t give a single fuck. That singing isn’t for them, it’s for me.

Maybe that’s my rebellion against the silence that swallowed my father’s joy.

Part of the new me is making damn sure that music stays a priority in my life. Or, to borrow a line from the last post: it goes where I go.